Editorial
Book Description
“Key works on radical constructivism brings together a number
of essays by Ernst von Glasersfeld that illustrate the application of
a radical constructivist way of thinking in the areas of education,
language, theory of knowledge, and the analysis of a few concepts
that are indispensable in almost everything we think and do.

Ernst
von Glasersfeld's work opens a window on how we know what we know.
The present work grew out of a desire to make more accessible this
line of thought, to highlight its originality and consistency, and to
illustrate its fecundity in the domains of cognition and learning.
The first three parts of this book contain texts by Glasersfeld that
outline the constructivist approach and explicate the frequently
drastic reconceptualizations he has suggested.

Both
the last part and the postscript consist of commentaries by Edith
Ackermann, Jacques Désautels, Gérard Fourez, Leslie P.
Steffe and Kenneth Tobin, scholars in the fields that Glasersfeld has
been concerned with. They examine a number of critical aspects
pertaining to (radical) constructivism's current and future
development, often tracing out paths that warrant further exploration
and reflection, in particular concerning the sociopolitical dimension
of knowledge.

“Key
works on radical constructivism” is intended as a reference
book for researchers, educators, and students of education-and for
anyone interested in grasping, or deepening their grasp of, radical
constructivism's tenets, ambitions and concerns. Readers will
discover in this collection of firsthand contributions the contours
of a bold, contemporary debate about a most compelling current of
thought.

Ernst
von Glasersfeldwas brought up
with more than one language from the very beginning. This taught him
early on that the realities people think and talk about are
noticeably different. He was much influenced by Silvio Ceccato, the
founder of the Operational School in Italy, and then by Jean Piaget's
Genetic epistemology, to which, he believes, he was able to add some
details. He worked as a language analyst at the Center for
Cybernetics in Milan, directed a language research project for the Us
Air Force from 1962 to 1970, and then taught as professor of
cognitive psychology at the University of Georgia, USA. In 1987 he
retired at the age of 75 and became Research Associate at the
Scientific Reasoning Research Institute of the University of
Massachusetts. Throughout, his main interest was how we come to know
what we know and how thought and language are linked. He has
published several books in English, German, and Italian.

Marie
Larochelleis Full Professor at
the Faculty of Education of Université Laval, Québec
City. For many years, she has actively researched socio
epistemological problems related to the teaching/learning of
scientific knowledge. Her publications have been primarily in the
fields of science education and constructivism. Her current research
interests focus on how students and future science teachers figure or
represent the conflicts, controversies, negotiations and socioethical
issues that shape the practice of the technosciences.

****

CONTENTS

Preface
(Ernst von Glasersfeld)

List
of contributors

Acknowledgment
of sources

INTRODUCTION:
ERNST YON GLASERSFELD'S WAY OF WORLDMAKING

Marie
Larochelle

PART I: LEARNING,
LANGUAGE, AND THE RADICAL THEORY

1.
Learning as a constructive activity

2.
Reconstructing the concept of knowledge

3.
Facts and the self from a constructivist point of view

4.
Signs, communication, and language

5.
How do we mean? A constructivist sketch of semantics

6.
On the concept of interpretation

7.
Piaget and the radical constructivist epistemology

PART II: THEORY OF
KNOWLEDGE

8.
Aspects of constructivism: Vico, Berkeley, Piaget

9. The end of a
grand illusion

10.
The simplicity complex

1.1.
The logic of scientific fallibility

1.2.
The incommensurability of science and poetic wisdom

13.
Farewell to objectivity

1.4.
The radical constructivist view of science

1.5.
Cybernetics and the theory of knowledge

PART
III: CONCEPTUAL ANALYSES

16.
Notes on the concept of change

17.
Abstraction, re-presentation, and reflection. An interpretation of
experience and of Piaget' s approach

18.
Representation and deduction

19.
A constructivist approach to experiential foundations of mathematical
concepts